The New UCSF Curriculum

[doubletwenty]

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Is it bad or good that ucsf is becoming a three year program next year?

 

[BMBiology]

If you searched my posts, I made this prediction more than a year ago.

Other schools especially schools in Californian will follow and this would just make the problem with oversupply of pharmacists even worse.

Next thing to fall is the pre-reqs and pcat requirement. Schools will make it easier for students to apply especially community college students.

It is just a race to the bottom. Schools are having a hard time filling their seats. If pharmacy schools lose 10% enrollment which may happen within the next 1-2 years, they will start to make cuts. It is just a matter of time now.


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[confettiflyer]

PCAT is stupid, and the top tier schools didn't require it (in CA) anyway.

I probably won't notice anything, except my UCSF kids will be a bit more tired looking come rotation time.

Operationally, our paid interns will have less availability during breaks.

Overall I don't think this is a big deal.


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[BMBiology]

Right now the number applied is about the same as the number of available seats. This obviously mean anybody who meet the requirements and apply to enough school will get accepted.

Number of applicant has been dropping. How are schools going to get more applicants? Obviously not from 3.5 gpa students because they have other options. They will try to get < 2.7- 3.3 gpa students but many of these students have not taken all of the pre-reqs and have not taken the pcat. Many of them decided to apply after reading some article or because they can't get into other professional schools so they need to make it easy for them. Making it a 3 year program is also attractive but this is just a way for these schools to increase class size and to make more money. Why leave empty classrooms during the summer?

They can easily get rid of the pcat requirement. The pre-reqs will be a little tricky. What pre-reqs will they get rid of? How about just one quarter of ochem?

Just another sign things are becoming bad for pharmacy schools and eventually this wave of pharmacists will get bigger and bigger then BAM!


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[steveysmith54]

just very odd...I don't understand it, I agree with BMB that is a step in the wrong direction. Back in my day UCSF was getting 30 applications per spot and this school was considered a reach for most. It's also not good for school's reputation that about 1/3 of the class are failing CPJE. What exactly are they teaching there? I briefly glanced at what they hope to accomplish with this change and this is what they list " 3-year, year-round program, allowing earlier entry into advanced training beyond the PharmD". Just not realistic IMO due to lack of residency spots/fellowships/etc. Are they hinting to their prospective stududents that they will need further training to gain employment? Speaking from experience, I used summers and any breaks in school to work and gain relevant and actual pharmacy experience that is not taught with SOAP notes and patient cases. This helped me to be ready to be a pharmacist from day 1. So BOP pharmacy took away the 900 hours of outside work requirement and now schools are changing curriculum.

 

[lord999]

Is it bad or good that ucsf is becoming a three year program next year?

Breakeven for the faculty as there's already break quarters scheduled into their system. What it really does is prevent everyone from taking summer quarter as the rest quarter. UCSF and USC historically lead the rest of the schools in terms of retooling their curriculum. The PharmD was originated at USC and quickly migrated to UCSF, and the clinical year as the current students and recent grads in the modern era experienced is in large part due to UCSF's curricular reforms to have more experiential hours. I think this is student unfriendly personally, but it does save the state substantial training resources.

 

[samuricool]

Won't there be a year where two classes graduate at the same time? The first being the previous four year program and then the new three year program, assuming they don't take a year off - which I doubt will happen because they need that tuition money.


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[radio frequency]

I think PharmD programs are losing a lot of prospective students to other pathways, like year round PA school (only two years long). Three years may make them able to draw from some of those crowds...